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NOTES AND QUERIES
Buddhism, and are perhaps better known to the general reader in this context; and they are found in connexion with a number of esoteric sects with mixed beliefs of which Hsien-t'ien Tao is one of the most popular in the region of Hong Kong. Their main purpose is to provide members of the connected faith with a place where they can meet and engage in common worship and also practise certain individual religious tasks, especially in the sect. They are usually residential today.
The diet provided in such halls, is, as one would expect from their name, entirely vegetarian. Many halls today welcome members of the public who wish either to worship one of their deities, some of which are generally popular with the Chinese, or to take vegetarian food. Vegetarian meals are often provided, for example on such popular festivals as those of Kuan-yin: “Goddess of Mercy".
The halls of all faiths are particularly popular in Hong Kong with unattached women especially working and retired domestic servants (amahs). They provide a home in old age and a pied-à-terre for the working woman. Many of the residents of the halls visited were retired amahs and several of their occasional inmates were said to be working amahs and factory girls. Halls also provide funeral benefits and house the soul-tablets of deceased members. It is usual for women to make regular payments during their working life for permanent residence and funeral arrangements later on,
Another attraction of the halls, both Buddhist and sectarian, is that they recruit members through what one might term a pseudo-kinship system. One joins through a master who is regarded as something like a father; the fellow disciples of this man are termed (paternal) "uncles" and one's own fellow disciples "brothers". Halls normally house "family" households, and one hall may be connected with others through extended "family" relationships, and, in the case of the Buddhist halls, with monasteries and nunneries occupied by monk and nun "brothers" in the "family". Genealogies may be constructed and kept.
Such "families" practise "ancestor" worship (unmarried persons may receive such ritual attentions and have tablets placed for them in the hall: not customary in the traditional Chinese actual kinship system). They also engage in many social activities